Black Mountain: In the Future
Jagjaguwar
2008
Rating:


Psych-prog-heavy metal rocker Black Mountain pushes the limits of riffage and cosmos keyboards on its sophomore release "In the Future." Somewhat ironically named, the album looks back to AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd without really pushing the styles of those groups forward. As opposed to the disposable Wolfmother, Black Mountain joyfully recaptures the hard, bombastic pleasures of those bands while still sounding fresh and exciting thanks to a keen ear for multi-movement melodies and visceral rhythms.

"Stormy High" starts class with the intro to AC/DC's "Hells Bells" before launching into raucous seven-eight time and the wails of bandleader Stephen McBean and vocalist Amber Webber. "Angels" is a Tom Petty come-on with "Strawberry Fields" flutes and towering guitar.

The real opus here is "Tyrant," a dizzying vortex into the loud-quiet-loud formula that elicits goosebumps from Webber's vocals in the valleys and bangs heads with the peaks. "Tyrant" is a sustainable epic at eight minutes long, but "Bright Lights," at twice the length, overindulges in prog tendencies for the sake of whiplashing between "Immigrant Song" thrashes and space jamming. Black Mountain can bring the heavy, but sometimes that means wallowing through the prog morass to get to the metal summit on the other side.

Posted Saturday, February 9, 2008

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http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/black.mountain/in.the.future